Urban Studies Undergraduate Program
Designed as an interdisciplinary program, the urban studies major offers a broad introduction to the city and the urban environment. Students combine course work and research on urban issues with hands-on experience in New York City as well as other American and international cities. The curriculum prepares majors for graduate school and professional programs in teaching, social work, public policy, architecture and urban planning as well as for careers in government service and community development, the non-profit sector, journalism and law.
The major in urban studies is available at Fordham College at Rose Hill and Fordham College at Lincoln Center. Students in the Fordham School of Professional and Continuing Studies may major in urban studies only if their schedules are sufficiently flexible to permit them to take day courses at the Rose Hill or Lincoln Center campuses.
2024 Trinity Fellowships
Congratulations Olivia Griffin and Christine Rong!
Recipients of the 2024/25 Trinity Financial Fellowship
The Trinity Financial Fellowship supports the academic research of outstanding Urban Studies undergraduate majors at Fordham University as they complete their senior internship and thesis.
Participants in the Trinity Financial Fellowship produce senior theses related to social and economic concerns, community and cultural initiatives, the built environment and environmental justice.
Current Fellow Insights
Olivia Griffin
“Thank you so much, I'm so honored! Hi, I’m Olivia! I am a senior Urban Studies major, with an English minor, at Fordham College Rose Hill in the Honors Program. I grew up in Oklahoma City, OK and am a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. I am interested in strengthening connections between communities and their environment. Therefore, I intend on interning with Water Alliance, a non-profit seeking to build, protect, and revitalize accessible waterfronts across NYC. For my thesis, I aim to study a specific neighborhood in the Bronx and their relationship with the waterfront. Using a case study will allow me to analyze broader topics of sustainability, urban development and gentrification, and accessibility in design through a narrower scope. Additionally, I hope to review current urban formations in that area and apply my knowledge of the waterfront, from the internship, to predict future waterfront design patterns and their subsequent social impacts. As NYC implements their “Comprehensive Waterfront Plan,” there will be major social, economic, and health impacts on urban communities in the near future, and I hope to clarify the path forward through my research.”
Christine Rong
“Thank you for this opportunity! I am eternally grateful. My name is Christine Rong, and I am a senior at FCLC studying Urban Studies with a minor in Business Administration. I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. In my senior thesis, I will explore the connection between free speech and urban spaces, specifically public-private partnerships, and how the parties involved significantly impact the narratives of social movements. I plan to explore major social movements that began and took place in the New York Metropolitan Area and how the physical spaces they took place in affected their overall impact.”
In Bronx and beyond, the pandemic revealed resilience
from the christian science monitor:
“When Bethany Fernandez first began to document oral histories in the Bronx during the pandemic, her own life was “chaotic,” she says – her familiar routines upended, her days confronted with fear and uncertainty.
But the past year and a half has become, almost in a strange way, a time of profound personal growth and self-discovery, says Ms. Fernandez, a lifelong resident of the Bronx, a borough of New York City.
The communities surrounding her were among the most afflicted in the country, and they were being documented relentlessly in the news. But when she decided to join a group of fellow students at Fordham University to launch the Bronx COVID-19 Oral History Project, she found a reality not fully captured in the news, she says.”
“In moments like these, a cynical person might think, ‘Oh, people are going to be selfish’ – resources are scarce, survival of the fittest, or whatever,” says Ms. Fernandez. “But no, it was the complete opposite. People were willing to give, people willing to extend themselves, even if they may not have had that much to give or to extend.”
In two dozen interviews with Bronx teachers, families, artists, and community leaders, people described a similar sense of energy, positivity, and resilience, says Mark Naison, professor of history and African and African American studies at Fordham, who advised the students.
“You know, we found all these people who were doing amazing things to help keep the community alive during this time,” he says.
Read the full article by Harry Bruinius (@HarryBruinius) at The Christian Science Monitor.
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- Designing the City, Sustainably: Sustainability and Climate Change Resiliency in New York City by Cosima Balletti-Thomas
- Making Sustainability Accessible: Green Affordable Housing Development in the South Bronx by Natalie A. Bartfay
- Raising an Indoor Generation: Outdoor Environmental Education Impact on Adolescent Development by Daisy Elizabeth Bewley
- The Fault with Asphalt: Towards Absorbent Urban Design in New York City by Scott Paul Redfern Brown
- Preparing for Climate Change in New York City: Geographic Information Systems as a Valuable Tool for Natural Hazard Management by Amy Carrillo
- Problems and Possibilities of Private Equity and Environmental Sustainability by Katherine N. Elliot
- The University Greening Movement: Is Carbon Neutrality Enough to Avert a Climate Crisis? by Sean R. Finlay
- Food Choice Reform: Shifting American Culture Toward Sustainable Diets by Colleen McCarthy
- The Breath of the Bronx: Limited Greenspace and Poor Respiratory Health by Eric Patrick McLoughney
- Nature as Privilege: How Environmental Racism Changes the Access to Fresh Air and the Effects on New York City’s Communities by Sarah C. Morrison
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- Inch by Inch: Expanding the Community Garden Programs in New York City by Michael Bailey
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- Subsidizing Climate Change: How the Agricultural Business is Harming Our Planet by Caroline Berejka
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- A Green Opportunity: Why American Conservatives Will Benefit By Fighting Climate Change by Byrne W. Cronin
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- Assessing the Effects of Ecotourism on the Developing World: A Galapagos Case Study by Ife Adelona
- The Disappearing Wetland Act: Climate Change, Development, and Protection by Jessica P. Doughty
- Greenways In America: The Ecosystem Services of Urban Greenways and their Neighborhood Benefits by Bryan E. Kiel
- Housing the Homeless: A Framework for Sustainable, Affordable Housing by Brianna Providence
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- Do or Die: Environmental History, Environmental Politics and Environmental Economics and Their Implications for Mitigating the Effects of Climate Change by Christopher Cannon
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- A Case for Career and Technical Education (CTE) in Reducing High School Dropout Rates and Youth Unemployment Among Urban Youth by Sharnell Creary
- Mindless Meat: An Exploration of Meat’s Role in Environmental Degradation and World Hunger by Camille A. Danielich
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- The Solar Power Difference: How Solar Energy Can Boost Economies and Nicaragua's Rural Communities by Matthew R. Feuer
- Gentrification and Urban Displacement Surrounding Fordham University’s Bronx Community by Ryan Fleites
- Infiltrating Green into the Urban Machine: Creating Equity Through Zero-Acreage Farms in NYC by Hania Hribal-Kornilowicz
- Parks and W[rec]k: Ecosystem Services of Urban Parks by Serena Iacoviello
- Sustainable Development: Challenge, Policy, Solution by Karl W. Knotoff
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- Climate and Crisis: Environmental Degradation and Humanitarian Disaster in Darfur by Talia Macauley
- New York City Underwater: Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation by Anna Marshall
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- Wave and Tidal Energy in New York: Sustainable Hydroelectricity for the Grid by Lucas Basil Romanowsky
- Heroin Devastates Hen Hud: A Case Study by Mikela Ryan
- Case Study: Bronx River Alliance Successful Strategies of Urban Non-Profit Environmental Organizations by Danielle Rose Shtab
- East Harlem: An Inquiry into Development by Madeleine Sims
- Feeding America's Growing Cities: The Role of Urban Agriculture in the Future of Food Distribution And Accessibility by Leigh Anne Statuto
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- Nature Deficit Disorder and the Need for Environmental Education by Vanessa J. Dwyre
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